Restart
by Perks of Being a Mockingjay
Summary: After Reinette, pre-revolutionary France and the fireplace, Rose doesn't have faith in the Doctor anymore. What will happen when they land on a planet where absolute trust in one-another is key to their survival?
1. Farewell to a Friend

**Disclaimer- I don't own Doctor Who, nor do I own the songs which I based each chapter on. They all belong to their respective creators/owners. **

**Author's note- not only haven't I published anything here in months, but I also deleted every story that I had published before. This makes me feel like a bad fanfiction author, so when the idea for this story came to me I wanted to redeem myself and this happened… In this chapter, there isn't much shipping, but it was necessary in order for future chapters to make sense so please bear with me. Enjoy!**

**Restart**

'_The captain's got his boots on and he's heading out the door,_

_Leaving his lady alone thinking 'He don't love me no more.'_

_He's done with all this bullshit, he's going back to war,_

_If Heaven is as Heaven does then this is Hell for sure..._

_And he'll tick tick tick tick tick tick tick away, _

_Another second lost with every fallen grain._

_He'll tick tick tick tick tick tick tick away, _

_Another second lost with every fallen grain'-_ Laura Marling, The Captain and the Hourglass

She'd lost count of the minutes she'd spent sitting in silence on the TARDIS floor. She'd lost count of the awkward sideways glances shot between her, Mickey and the Doctor. She'd lost count of the gentle breaths that seemed so loud in the oppressive quiet which filled the air. All she hadn't lost count of were the ticks and the tocks that had become a permanent feature of her thoughts ever since pre-revolutionary France, ever since Reinette and the droids and the fireplace and all the things that made her doubt the lone Timelord for the very first time.

He'd left them there. He'd left her and Mickey thousands of years in their future on that terrible ship with no obvious means of return, and for what?

For Madame de Pompadour. It was all for her.

They could have died. The droids easily could have reactivated, mercilessly harvested their organs and left them there, doused in their own blood, on the operating tables.

For her.

They'd be dead, for the sake of a complete stranger.

Usually, that'd be a little bit okay, perhaps even heroic. However, heroism isn't about accepting whatever life throws at you because there aren't any other options, it's about knowing the other options and choosing to do the bravest thing, anyway. Mickey and Rose weren't given a choice, the Doctor imposed his choice upon them.

Ultimately, he decided that he would put Reinette and the timelines above his companions safety, and neither of them were too cheerful about it.

* * *

As Rose retired to her room, exhausted and emotionally drained from that day's events, the tension somehow in the console room became even more palpable.

"Mickaay!" the Doctor chirped, leaping around the TARDIS console with a slightly false grin upon his face.

After a brief pause, the confused-looking man replied with a murmured "Alrigh'?"

"D-d-don't do that..."

"Wha' did I do wrong this time?"

"Nothing wrong, per se, but... 'Alright'. As a greeting…" He shook his head disapprovingly and glanced sorrowfully to the floor, before audibly sighing. "Do you mean to ask me whether I'm alright? Are you informing that I am, in fact, alright? Are you telling me that you're alright? What, Michael Smith, do you mean?"

"Well I don't know, do I? It's just what people say," he mumbled, dragging his feet along the floor as he circled the console as if suspicious of it.

"People should stop saying it." There was an awkward, long silence. "...Anyway-"

"I want to go home," Mickey suddenly blurted.

"So soon?"

"Yup."

"Oh... right. Space too much for you, I take it?" The Doctor asked, slightly patronising in his tone, slightly pitying in his facial expression.

"Nah, just that-"

"Like a computer going into overdrive, pour too much information into it at once and boom!" he interrupted, putting his hands to his temples then reaching outwards to gesture an explosion.

"Boom?"

"Boom."

"Aren't you gonna ask me why?"

"Why what?"

"Why I'm leaving."

"Do you want me to ask?"

"No."

"Alrighty then, Mickedy-Mick-Mick, I'll ask!"

"I asked you not to ask!"

"No, you told me you'd rather I didn't ask, but as annoying you is easily my favourite pastime, I asked. Simple, really! Not as simple as you, but then again few things are…"

"Reinette." At this, the Time Lord made an indignant noise at the back of his throat which was a strange cross between a hiccup, a cough and a sigh.

"What about her?"

"You left me and Rose there, on that ship… thing with those clockwork… things, and it was for 'er, for Reinette. That's why I'm going."

"Ah."

"Any response, boss?"

"No."

The TARDIS groaned as it sparked into motion, and neither the Doctor nor Mickey spoke as it landed with a loud rumble on the grey concrete of the Powell Estate. Heavy rainfall on the TARDIS' roof was audible, which brought an eerie sense of calm to the ship usually abuzz with life and laughter, and with a silent nod the man who'd learnt that he was so much more than just a tin-dog left for the final time.

With that, the TARDIS drifted back into the vortex as the Doctor sunk to the grated floor, a million different thoughts running through his mind.

* * *

"Doctor?" Rose called, walking to his side, and he made a noise of affirmation as she continued to speak. "I just got a call from Mickey, said he's left." Her phone was still clutched so tightly in her hand that her knuckles were stained white.

In response he lifted up his hand and grabbed hers, tugging downwards. She sat next to the Time Lord with a barely-concealed grimace, and put her head slowly on his shoulder, biting back a sob.

"Yeah, I dropped him off at the estate about ten minutes ago," he said quietly.

"He didn't say goodbye," she whispered, her voice choked.

"No, he didn't."


	2. Welcome to the Wilderness

**Author's note- thanks to everyone who's favourited and followed this story! It means a lot to me. Please review, because reviews make me smile, even when they're critical. Constructive criticism honestly is really useful to me and I do take into account every comment on how I can improve. This chapter's a bit more fast-paced than the last, with a little less description and a little more plot. I wrote Rose quite annoyingly in this chapter, but it's all for the sake of the story and it will all make sense eventually. Thank you! **

**Restart- Chapter Two**

'_You are the avalanche_

_One world away_

_My make believing_

_While I'm wide awake_

_Just a trick of light_

_To bring me back around again_

_Those wild eyes_

_A psychedelic silhouette_

_I never meant to fall for you but I_

_Was buried underneath and_

_All that I could see was white_

_My salvation_

_My, my_

_My salvation_

_My, my' - Gabrielle Aplin, Salvation_

The TARDIS landed with a shudder on unfamiliar ground, and almost immediately after stepping through its sturdy wooden doors, the Doctor sensed that something wasn't quite right. It was too quiet. It was too orderly. It was too... alien, even for him. The planet seemed lifeless, empty, dead. Its sky was tinged a greenish shade of grey, though this was barely visible through the thick mass of cloud, and dotted across the vast sea of concrete below were white, windowless cube-shaped houses. The streets were not filled with laughing pedestrians, walking their dogs and pushing their prams and carrying their briefcases to and fro as they should have been, but silence. Just silence.

Rose must have sensed his apprehension on some level, because as she walked to his side she subconsciously started gesturing back towards the safety of the TARDIS and never ventured more than a few metres from it. Her expression was guarded and her muscles were tensed, ready to run at a moment's notice. The Time-Lord on the other hand, walked onwards, while his companion chose not to follow. His gaze was fixed on an apparently random point somewhere far in the distance, where the air was a little clearer and the sky was a little bluer.

The Doctor tried to take another step forward, but found he couldn't. Around his feet, a circle which looked as if it had been drawn with chalk appeared. Glancing backwards, he saw the same thing had materialised around Rose. Nodding to her in reassurance, he mouthed the words 'stay calm' and tried again to step from its circumference, and found once more that he couldn't. Slightly panicked, he tried again. And again. And again. It never worked.

Suddenly, a hissing sound filled his ears, like a radio without signal. That noise was followed by an extremely loud screech, and that noise was followed by a breathy shout of "Criminal activity detected!" Barely a yard in front of him, a woman stood. She could have easily passed for a human, from a distance, but she was at least two feet taller than the average woman, with indigo eyes that had no pupils and eyebrows that sat unusually high-up on her forehead. Her skin was so pale and unwrinkled that it seemed almost as if she'd never seen sunlight, in stark contrast to the blackness of her pin-straight hair, and she was exceptionally muscular, like she'd been exercising twenty-four hours per day for every day of her life.

"You both will come with me to Detainee Centre Nine. Immediately," she sharply said, glancing suspiciously between them both.

"And why, might I ask, would we do that?" the Doctor drawled, stuffing his hands awkwardly in his coat pockets, an action that had become almost reflexive for him.

Without missing a beat, she replied: "Two reasons: one, I've charged you with a criminal offence and therefore you have a duty to face the consequences. Two, if you don't come with me now I will assume you are guilty and you will face the punishment here, without trial." After she'd finished speaking, the glint in her eyes and the smirk upon her face radiated pure smugness, but she also looked oddly pitying.

"What 'offence' have we been charged with, we've only been here two minutes?!" he cried incredulously, shrugging his shoulders and half-spitting the words as he said them.

She sighed audibly and shook her head like a parent disappointed in their child. "Our sensors have picked up high levels of illegal emotions."

"Wha-what? 'Illegal emotions'!" he stuttered, eyes wide and hands flailing wildly.

"Yes. They detected long-term negativity in the girl and short-term negativity in you." At this, the Doctor turned to Rose with a brief look of confusion and concern, before his gaze fell to the floor and back to the stranger with whom he was arguing.

"Sooooo… Negativity. That's a crime?"

"Of course."

"And it's punishable by?"

"Death."

There was a pause that could only have lasted a second but felt like an eternity. "I'm sorry?" he breathed.

"Death. Negativity is punishable by death," she said so casually that it made the Doctor and Rose's skin crawl.

"Why?" he hissed, too sickened, too infuriated and too disgusted to raise his voice.

The woman looked bored, at this point, and as she spoke her voice was weary. "Oh God, don't give me that. Everyone knows why."

"What can I say, I'm the local simpleton. Enlighten me." She didn't look amused, but to shatter the uncomfortable silence he continued to talk. "... there was no need to call me 'God', by the way." Her eyebrows raised even higher than they naturally did with his words.

"No! You know why and I'm not about to waste my time having this conversation."

Rose, this time, was the one who raised her voice to a soft murmur."How about we make a deal: you tell me why, we'll go without putting up a fight?" She looked so resigned, so tired, that it would have been heartbreaking for a complete stranger to see, let alone the best friend who was standing just a little distance from her. It was so unlike her to act like that. She sounded almost as if a spark in her had just gone out, and that spark was the only thing that fuelled her to keep going through any and every difficulty. Her fieriness, her optimism, her general Rose-ness was leaving her, and it was agonising for the Doctor to watch as it faded away.

"I'm sick of this, I'm sick of you two… I'm calling for backup," the woman mumbled bitterly, repeatedly hitting a button on her watch until it glowed fluorescent yellow and emitted a radar-like sound.

"No, no! Don't do that, we're really not worth causing all _that_ much bother for," the Doctor cut in, attempting to leap forwards before being forced backwards by the forcefield around him.

For a second, no-one spoke, then Rose had a sudden change of heart. "I second that!" she cried, and the Time-Lord turned to her with the ghost of a smile which she reciprocated. Her cheer and hopefulness were false, he could tell, but if she was strong enough to pretend they were real in such a dire situation then she was definitely strong enough to get them back.

"Too late." A doppelganger of the woman appeared beside her, and the Doctor mouthed the word 'clone' to Rose as she looked confusedly towards him.

In response, she nodded and sarcastically breathed "Of course," before pushing the heels of her hands into the sockets of her eyes and shakily sighing. They were quickly losing control over the situation, and it was terrifying.

One clone approached Rose, the other approached the Doctor, and as they touched the circumference of the force-fields, the chalk-like circles on the ground suddenly disappeared. They didn't have time to question what was happening as they were teleported to the Detainee Centre.


	3. A Man or a Mouse

**Author's note- This chapter's a little darker than the first two, I suppose, but I'm really interested to see your reactions to it. Whether you like it or loathe it, please say so in the reviews. I'm sorry that it took me a while to post this, by the way: it was supposed to be online yesterday but I got so tired while writing that I fell asleep on my keyboard and got woken up by a cat meowing in my face. I was not in a good frame of mind to be spell-checking things... Enjoy! **

**Chapter Three**

'_Everything will change_

_Nothing stays the same._

_Nobody here's perfect,_

_But everyone's to blame. _

_All that you rely on_

_And all that you can save_

_Will leave you in the morning_

_And find you in the day'- Andrew Belle, In My Veins_

Their trial was a lot less trial-y than they'd expected. It was more like being told what they'd done and what their punishment for it would be. Repeatedly. The judge had the same cold, hard face and voice as the women who'd arrested them. She also was a clone.

"Suspect One: Rose Tyler. You stand accused of feeling long-term negativity. Long-term is defined as any amount of time longer than twenty-four hours. Negativity is defined as any of the following emotions: sorrow, anger, anxiety, distrust, resentment or envy. As our sensors already have gathered all the evidence we need to prosecute you, we do not need to hear your plea. At eleven PM you will be administered a lethal injection. Next!"

"Suspect Two: John Smith," at this, Rose looked questioningly to the Doctor, who mouthed a reply of 'I needed a name-y name.' "You stand accused of feeling short-term negativity. Short-term is defined as any amount of time shorter than twenty-four hours. Negativity is defined as any of the following emotions: sorrow, anger, anxiety, distrust, resentment or envy. As our sensors already have gathered all the evidence we need to prosecute you, we do not need to hear your plea. At eleven PM you will be administered a lethal injection. Next!"

Rose and the Doctor were led around the Detainee Centre in silence by two more clones of the women who arrested them, these ones even more sour-faced and spiteful than their predecessors, with eyes fixed straight ahead and hearts beating so frantically that they were audible through the stillness of the air. Together, they ambled through a labyrinth of corridors, lit only by the artificially bright bulbs which swung lazily from the ceiling, until they reached a glass door which opened automatically as they approached. The room beyond had no furnishings, no decorations, white walls and about eight other prisoners who were all staring so intently at the floor that it seemed as if their glares could burn a hole in it. The Time-Lord and his companion nodded feebly at the hopeless group in greeting, though none acknowledged them in return, and before the door closed the clones spoke once more: "You have one hour."

One hour. One measly hour.

Sixty minutes.

Three-thousand-six-hundred seconds.

For a Time-Lord, that was barely the blink of an eye. For the human who was clutching his hand tightly enough in her trembling one that his circulation was restricted, it was all the time she had left. The girl was only twenty years old, and he'd dragged her to her death. The person who'd made him better and stronger and kinder and wiser and happier: he was destined to be responsible for her downfall. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right…

She was all he had left, but the universe seemed determined to take her from him, too.

His voice crackled like a fading fire as he spoke her name in a way that was simultaneously questioning and reassuring, but her reply to him was nonverbal: she sighed so loudly that it seemed as if all the air in her body had been lost with that single exhalation, then shook her head almost imperceptibly and leaned heavily on his shoulder. Putting an arm around her, he noticed she was tense from the anxiety their situation had caused. He pulled her with him to the floor with him and settled into a more comfortable seated position.

"Sooo… Got an hour to get out of here, Tyler. Any suggestions how?" he drawled, absentmindedly pulling at a loose thread of his jacket and, in his distractedness, picking a rather large hole into the pocket by complete accident. The breaking of the silence startled the other occupants of the cell into a chatter of their own, filling the room with sound and life and making his and Rose's conversation much more private.

"Nope," she said boredly, popping the 'p' and looking oddly disinterested for someone in a life-or-death situation.

"So we wing it?"

"As always," she murmured, graciously managing a small smile which she tried so hard to make reach her eyes.

For what felt like just a moment but must have been at least thirty minutes they'd fallen into a comfortable silence, where Rose tried with every ounce of her being to rationalise her cluttered thoughts and try not to get overwhelmed at the prospect that death might be right around the corner, while the Doctor tried desperately not to comment on the irregular beating of heart or the dangerous infrequency of her breaths or the fact that she hadn't blinked once since they'd last spoken. Instead, he tightened his arm around her and hoped that she didn't see his own fear for her wellbeing.

Tentatively, he brought his voice up to a kind whisper and said "You know, Rose, they said that they detected… 'long-term negativity' in you."

She averted her eyes, and coolly said "Yes," refusing to elaborate.

"Do you want to tell me why?" he gently encouraged, before retreating like a vet at a zoo enclosure who'd just realized that the wolf he was trying to save had not been properly sedated. She looked back to him, then, with a mixture of pity, admiration, adoration and disappointment. "No, no… Of course you don't want to. Silly of me to ask, really. None of my business. None at all. I shouldn't be so nosy. Funny word: 'nosy'. Wonder where that comes from… Should have asked Dickens if he knows where it-"

"Reinette," she said calmly, no trace of emotion in her voice.

"Sorry?" he breathed, confused, saddened and slightly offended at her answer.

She sighed, clearly regretful that she'd chosen to speak, and then explained herself awkwardly. "Reinette. You left us on that ship, and we could have died, and you might have never known because you chose Reinette." Towards the end of her speech, Rose's voice faded to a meek and feeble tone than harshly contrasted the vibrancy of her character.

"Rose, I didn't choose her. I chose to save human history," The Doctor implored, asking her not with his words but with the pleading tone that he spoke with to understand his actions, to accept them. In response, she could only roll her eyes and wish that he knew what he'd put her through for those five-and-a-half hours, waiting on the edge of nowhere, no idea if she'd see home again, no idea if she'd survive.

From the corner of the room an elderly woman then appeared, thin, dressed all in black and shakily leaning on her walking stick."Apologies for my interruption, but did you just speak of humans?"

"Yes," they replied in monotonous unison.

"And are either of you human?" she asked in concern, her already lined forehead creasing as her eyebrows fell into a frown and her ageless eyes heavy with sadness.

"Yes," answered Rose, while rising to her feet and helping the woman to sit down again.

The stranger looked heartbroken in that moment, with tears preparing to overflow and yellowish skin turning white as December snow with fear. She croakily uttered "No, no, no… You poor child, poor child… So young, too young. I am truly sorry," before pulling the startled girl into an uncomfortable hug.

"Why?" The Doctor murmured darkly, looking worriedly between them.

"You don't know?" When all she got in response were two blank stares, she continued. "They took all the humans for experimentation, but now they've run out. They need more. They need so many more but there are none left!"

There was a moment where the air was still, then "They'll take her," he breathed through gritted teeth, the thumping of his hearts against his ribcage sickeningly painful as he tried not to externalise his terror. The woman made a sound of affirmation.

"Me?" Rose asked, her voice trembling.

"Yes," the woman and The Doctor mumbled, one sounding suddenly much more scared than the other.

Gathering all her strength in order to have a rational conversation, she mumbled "Humans, though… Why us? Why us specifically?"

"You honestly don't know," she said in pure bafflement.

"I honestly don't know."

And so she spoke: "My species can't survive for longer than a year without Vitamin D, and we can only get Vitamin D from sunlight. There was a war, though, and the land on which the shines was claimed by our foes. Soon, we'll all be dead, unless we find another way to absorb it. That's where the humans come in: they are able to access it through food, which we can't do. If we ingest Vitamin D, our bodies reject it. The people of this planet experimented on humans to see why this was, to see if we could make our bodies act in this way, but…"

"But?" The Doctor prompted.

Her voice became frantic when next she talked. "Many of the scientists doing these tests were desperate, they became frantic in their efforts, absolutely mad! They were cruel to the experimentees. They were ruthless."

The Doctor leaned forward and whispered in a way that was somehow disappointed. "Let me guess: they got greedy?"

"Yes. They published thousands of papers filled with lies, because the people _needed_ something to believe, some hope to hold onto. It's why the streets are empty and we're here, now."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked kindly, her tone gentle and encouraging.

"The most commonly believed paper was written by a man named Geoffrey-George Whittle. It said that the humans produced chemicals when they felt joyful which allows them to absorb Vitamin D into their systems. Not true, of course, but we all seemed to believe it. He gave us some pills, he said that they'd replicate the chemicals that humans produced. We took them. He told us that if we felt happy while on them, we'd have no deficiency and we'd survive. What he never thought to mention was that the pills were made from solidified human blood. He got it through, um… he drained them. He gathered up all of the humans he could find and drained their blood, Just to make a placebo… For his 'miraculous discovery', he was granted a position extremely high-up in government, but then people started to notice the flaws in his work. Nobody was getting better. People were still dying. He blamed them, though. He said they weren't happy enough, if they were happy then apparently his pills would be effective," the woman explained, glancing upwards occasionally in bitter remembrance.

"And this is where, I suppose, 'illegal emotions' come into the equation?" The Doctor pondered.

"Yes. With his newfound power, he made it so that anybody feeling 'negativity' would be killed. However, the people who did the arresting actually became depressed as a result of their job, so they too were breaking the law. To resolve this, Geoffrey-George decided to clone a woman, I think she was called 'Sabrina Clarke', and have her be the _entire_ police force. The clones were granted diplomatic immunity and each given teleportation devices. The only flaw with these devices was that they could not get into houses without prior permission from the houses' owners. That's why the streets are so empty. People can only get arrested if they go outside, and it's almost certain that every being on this planet has reason to be arrested, so everyone stays indoors unless they absolutely have to leave."

Rose was next to speak: "But that doesn't make sense. Why would he be so protective over a medicine that he knows better than anyone isn't effective?"

The woman exhaled, shaking her head wistfully with eyes staring blankly ahead. "I don't know, child. Perhaps he repeated his lie enough that he started to believe it himself."

"Sorry to keep asking questions, but how do you know all this?" Rose half-whispered.

"I was Geoffrey's wife," the woman said simply, no hesitation in her answer.

"Ah. I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

Their conversation was brought to an abrupt halt by the sound of the door sliding open once more, and five guards appearing beyond it. Wordlessly, each one took two of the people from the cell by the arm and guided them through the corridors which felt all of a sudden much greyer.

All of them knew that when they'd reached their destination, they wouldn't return.

The solemn members of the group were dragged one-by-one into a scanning machine, which looked like two ceiling-height parallel glass panels with a gap about two-foot wide between them. As a person stepped into the machine, there was a flash similar to that of a camera and a beep like that of a microwave, and then that person's key details appeared on a computer screen at the opposite end of the room.

The first to step into the machine was a child:

Miranda Jane Sweeney

Species- Laakravien

8 years old

Daughter of Ava Peters and Lawrence Sweeney

Sister of Levi Sweeney

Asthmatic

Nut-allergy sufferer

The second, third, fourth and fifth to be scanned were brothers. One was called John, one was called James, one was called Joseph and one was called Jessop. They were the same species as the girl. None of them were over thirty years old.

The sixth and seventh were a mother and her daughter. The child trembled with fear as she walked alone into the machine: her name was Meadow, it turned out, and she had an identical twin at home called Leah. Her mother was called Giovanna, and she used to be a very successful florist before she had children.

The eighth was the old woman who they'd spoken to earlier. Her name was Elizabeth-Marie Whittle, but she'd been known previously as Marnie, Joan and Gracie. Both of her parents died from drug overdoses when she was only a toddler. With no family to care for her, in her teenage years she married Geoffrey-George Whittle in the hope of finding the security that she had never known in her youth.

When Rose walked into the machine and her information appeared, the security team scarcely could believe what they saw. They sought second opinions. They sought third opinions. And fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth… Yet that one word remained on the screen: 'human'. Without warning, like predators cornering their prey, they approached with eyes glinting gleefully and smirks adorning their faces.

But she had a plan.

Punching the glass, she watched with grim satisfaction as it crumbled to the ground, and from the wreckage she picked a single shard. First, she held it towards the attackers who looked nonplussed at her actions. Then, to their surprise, she put it to her own neck and said, "You don't see, do you? None of you see. You're being fed lies, and the lies are ruining you. This is who you want to be, is it? You want to be torturers, killers? You want to dissect me and make me into another bloody placebo that you can force-feed everyone out there and trick them into thinking they're getting better when they're only gonna get worse! That's who you want to be? Making your mums proud? _Well_... That's all fine and dandy, except there's just one problem: I'm not gonna be a part of your scheme. I'm not gonna give you that." Those were her final words, before she forced the blade through her skin as fleeting look of panic crossed her face and she collapsed to the floor.

* * *

The Doctor couldn't react.

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't think.

He felt sick and confused and lost and more alone than he ever had been.

Because that wasn't supposed to happen.

Because she wasn't supposed to be there, bleeding out on the floor.

Because she couldn't be.

Because she was _Rose_ and she just couldn't be!

Except she was.

And if he didn't do something then she was going to die there.

His vision was blurry. Why was his vision blurry?

And as he blinked the blurriness decreased for a second before being replaced by more blurriness, and when he put his head into his hands his cheeks weren't dry. Why was that?

Was he crying?

He hadn't cried since…

It didn't matter. Rose was hurt. That was the only thought that registered in his brain, and with that he sprung into action.


	4. Significance of a Second

**Author's note- here's the penultimate chapter, folks! I know nothing of medicine so I'm not entirely sure what you're actually meant to do in the situations shown in this story, so this is my improvisation. Please remember to review/follow/favourite… because that'd make me happy. By the way, I revised Rose's speech from the last chapter so unless you've only just started reading this story I recommend that you reread that part. Thank you!**

**Chapter Four**

'_Pray for the people inside your head_

_For they won't be there when you're dead_

_Muffled out and pushed back down_

_Pushed back through the leafy ground_

_Don't know where I can find myself a brand new pair of ears_

_Don't know where I can buy a heart_

_The one I've got is shoddy, I need a brand new body_

_And then I can have a brand new start'- Johnny Flynn, Tickle Me Pink_

He sprinted clumsily over to her slightly-twitching body, no longer concerned about anything else going on around them, and tried desperately to halt the flow of blood from her neck as it slipped between his reddened fingers. There was too much. Too much. Crimson filled his vision. A terrible, acrid scent of iron pervaded his nostrils. She tried to speak, and she failed. She tried to breathe, and she failed. Instead, all that came out was a panicked, horrified gurgle to which he replied with vaguely calming noises. Her eyes darted anywhere and everywhere, flickering briefly to the blank-faced guards and prisoners, to the ceiling and to the floor, to the bare walls and finally to the anguished expression of the Doctor, before rolling back into their sockets.

"No, no, no…" he chanted, while pulling her wrist from beneath her still form and searching for even the slightest flicker of life. In some detached part of his mind where emotions were replaced with only fact, he noticed that the gurgling sounds that she was making stopped, as had the steady rise and fall of her chest. In the other part of his mind, overrun by panic, he acknowledged that this certainly wasn't a good sign.

One second passed: no pulse.

Two seconds: no pulse.

Three seconds: no pulse.

Four, five, six seconds: nothing.

And 'no' was the only word that the Doctor mentally registered.

Because it wasn't right.

Because it was wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

It was all wrong.

She couldn't just _die_.

She couldn't.

Because she was _Rose_. And she wasn't even thirty years old yet. And he'd promised her that she could _always_ come back home. And they still hadn't seen Barcelona. And he still hadn't said…

And she just couldn't be dead.

Except she could.

Her face was growing greyer with every passing second, and blood was still running from that fatal wound, and her vital signs (or lack of) did nothing but reinforce his pessimism.

She wasn't pink and yellow, anymore.

No, no, no.

Using his coat to stanch the flow, he looked down at her with a look of pure hopelessness, the most terrible form of anguish.

In that moment, he truly looked nine-hundred years old. He looked tired, weary. He looked battle-worn. He looked empty.

More than anything, he looked lonely.

The Doctor acted purely on impulse, then, with no conscious thought going into his actions. Leaning over her motionless body and in the process noting that she was quite a few degrees cooler than she should have been, he pressed her hands to her chest and began doing compressions.

One. _Please_. Two. _If there's anybody listening_. Three. _Save her_. Four. _I'm begging you_.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

"Please!" he screamed to some unnamed, unknown deity, voice hoarse and eyes watery with tears that he adamantly refused to let fall.

Five. _She's everything_. Six. _She's all I have_. Seven. _She's_… Eight.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

_She's just Rose, but she's so much more than that. She's the Bad Wolf. The saviour. The destroyer. _

_My best friend. My only friend. My ally. My supporter. _

_Merciful and kind and forgiving and patient and… _

_She is Rose Marion Tyler of the Powell Estate, and I have no idea what I'd do without her. _

Nine, ten.

Something.

A flicker, barely there but at the same time all he could hear, all he could feel. His entire world encapsulated by that one faint and quickly-fading sign of life. One little beat of that fickle human heart and suddenly everything was okay again.

Everything was better.

He allowed himself to relish in a second of a relief so overpowering that it both dizzied and dazed him, a second of joy and confusion and gratefulness and another emotion which he couldn't quite identify, but no more than a second.

Rose would not survive if he took any longer than that.

Gathering her up and ensuring that his coat stayed secure but not suffocatingly tight around the slash on her crimson-soaked neck, a warm, affectionate glow filled his heart and mind as her head lolled aimlessly around until it came to rest on his shoulder. At this, he protectively tightened the arm he had placed around her and mumbled calming words to the grey-faced girl, hoping that on a subconscious level she'd understand him.

He slowly turned to face the guards.

"You wanted her blood, and you've got it. Now let us go. Please, let us go."

"She has not yet bled enough. We will take the girl," one of the guards stated, face devoid of any discernable feeling.

"You will not," he hissed in reply, in such a way that it seemed it was the only thing in the world that he was sure of. "On this planet, you have the technology to create apparently perfect clones."

"And?"

"And if you can clone people, then it seems likely that you can clone blood cells, too. Why haven't you done that, hmm?"

"We have to keep costs down," the other guard said, kneeling in the puddle of Rose's blood on the floor and gathering most of it into little plastic bags.

"Costs…" the Doctor murmured, face blank. "Costs, bloody costs!" he growled, his voice gradually growing louder. "That's what it always comes down to, isn't it? You've killed, you've hurt, you've destroyed, you've broken people beyond repair. Why? For a nice, big cut of the profit!"

"We all are greedy creatures at heart, Mister Smith," the first guard sneered, looking at the red pool on the floor as if it was a pile of treasure.

"And you'd kill to feed that greed?"

"Obviously."

"You sicken me, you sicken me more than you'd ever know... But because I'm rather brilliant, I'm going to give one chance to change. You could live normal lives. You could search for a cure that actually works. You could help people, save people," he implored, gesturing desperately to them.

"We can assure you that our cure does work, and we'll defend it to the death," the second guard breathed.

"That's your choice made?" the lone Time-Lord asked, his voice furious yet subtly pitying. In reply, he received two dignified nods of complete, unshatterable belief.

"Then I'm sorry."

He reached for the sonic screwdriver and aimed it at them. For a second, nothing happened. Then, a sap-like substance began to pour from their skin and sink into the ground. Their wails of agony shattered the stillness of the air as they collapsed into a state of lifelessness, but the Doctor couldn't even bring himself to be overly concerned. Walking to his fellow prisoners, who were then huddled together in a corner, he spoke in a voice tinged with an eerie calmness: "You'll all be alright, now. You'll survive."

"_How_?!" Elizabeth-Marie asked, her feeble voice strengthening as she pleaded with him.

He smiled slightly. "Those clones were so inbred that they started to develop traits and features that your species don't have. High eyebrows, odd facial structure, but one other thing which is very useful indeed: that watery… stuff, that came from them… As it sinks into the soil the plants'll mutate, and when consumed they'll alter your digestive systems. You'll all absorb vitamin D just fine, now."

"And what about the other clones?"

"Give them a choice. Always give them a choice, an opportunity to change. Killing's a last resort."


	5. First Aid and Forgiveness

**Author's note- Here's the final chapter! Thanks to everyone who has supported 'Restart', especially the wonderful reviewers whose feedback was massively kind and encouraging, and I hope you all enjoy the last part of this story. I'm so sorry this update was a little late but I had a mild panic attack on Friday, when I usually write, and I felt a little bit bleak, uncreative and generally not great as a result. I don't mean to play the sympathy card, but I honestly feel that I owe you all the truth. This one has a **_**lot**_** of dialogue: prepare yourselves, folks. As I said before, my medical knowledge is limited (at absolute best) so… don't try the healing techniques shown here at home (I'm assuming you wouldn't anyway, but I find disclaimers awfully comforting… I just realized the medical equipment shown here is partially fictional, anyway.) and thanks again to every last one of you. Toodlepip!**

**Updated author's note/reply to guest reviews- I was left some guest reviews a few days ago and I, as anyone who has already posted a review will know, reply to every review that I receive. Due to the fact that your reviews are on guest accounts I cannot reply to you directly, so I'm replying here. To 'Guest': thank you for your kindness and your enthusiasm for the story. It truly makes me smile and I'm grateful that you took time from your day to leave such a lovely comment. To 'I.B': thank you for leaving feedback, I'm truly grateful. You mentioned that you aren't quite sure why Rose is so upset when Mickey leaves, so I thought I should clarify. I included this scene because she was just left on a spaceship with no-one but him for company, and is dealing with the possibility that the Doctor might abandon her again in the future. If Mickey leaves and the Doctor repeats what he did before, Rose would be completely alone somewhere far away with no hope of return. I decided to only scratch the surface of her emotions and just _imply_ that she had issues with abandonment, rather than heavily explain each of her reactions to different situations, because it seemed quite random to bring those feelings up at that point in the story. Your review was only for chapter one, though, so I hope that you enjoyed the rest of the story more than that part of it. Thanks again :)**

**Chapter Five**

'_If we're only ever looking back_

_We will drive ourselves insane_

_As the friendship goes resentment grows_

_We will walk our different ways_

_But those are the days that bind us together, forever_

_And those little things define us forever, forever_

_All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry?_

_It's been cold for years, won't you let it lie?'- Bastille, Bad Blood_

Fortunately for the Doctor, the TARDIS was parked only a few kilometres away from the Detainee Centre, but held down by Rose's dead weight and the guilt which sat heavily upon his shoulders, it felt as if he'd walked for miles by the time he'd reached the console room. As the blue doors swung closed, his loyal ship hummed quietly in the back of the last Time-Lord's mind, sympathy, sadness and an underlying wisdom filling her age-old voice. He could barely acknowledge the beauty of that sound through his desperation to hear Rose Tyler's heartbeat once more. Dragging his feet along the metal ground, he silently made his way to the med-bay, with its all too clinical bluish-white lighting serving only to emphasize the greyness of Rose's deathly pale face, and he gently lay her still form upon the bed's thin mattress.

First, he hooked her up to an array of monitors, some to check her heart rate (much too fast), others to record her brain activity (not nearly enough was happening) and one to make sure that she was breathing properly (she was barely breathing at all.). He took a second to let the crippling relief of knowing that she was at the very least _alive _and reasonably safe in the refuge of the TARDIS, and then all-consuming fear that she was still hurt, still broken, still unconscious and almost dead rush over him. The pink and yellow human: why did she always find herself in these situations?

Allowing the information that her life was still in danger to fully register in his mind, he slowly and cautiously took his coat from her bloodied neck, trying to quell the trembling of his hands, and groaned in selfish anger as he looked upon the wound beneath.

The cut was far deeper than he'd expected, and therefore the damage to her fragile human body was so much greater. For a moment he recoiled in abject terror at the criticalness of her condition, but his ship hummed calmingly to him once more, and he returned to the side of his companion, sorry that he'd ever left. Analyzing the injury with ancient eyes, tired from their years of witnessing death, darkness and destruction, he noted that an artery had definitely been sliced. That was not a good sign, by any means. If an artery had been sliced, the oxygen supply to her brain had been reduced. And if that had been reduced, her chances of survival had been, too.

But if he knew just one thing, it was this: she was going to survive. There was no other option.

Tearing open a small metal cupboard labelled 'Major Wounds. Contents: antiseptic, needle, thread, bandages, painkillers (mild), painkillers (strong), dermal regenerator', he grabbed a small, sealed first aid bag and searched frantically through its contents. With a sigh of relief he acknowledged that the antiseptic he found inside was the most advanced of its kind, with healing as well as cleaning properties, so before doing anything else he drenched a cotton pad in the silverish-blue gooey substance and swiped it across her neck, watching in satisfaction as the lesion thinned to a a no longer life-threatening long crimson line. After this he switched on the dermal regenerator, hearing it buzz as electricity coursed through the clever little machine, and held it shakily about an inch above the remainder of the gash. Like a defibrillator, it went silent for a moment then louder than ever as it zapped the skin back into its proper state, leaving no trace of scarring on her still too pale complexion.

Now that her condition was no longer deteriorating, he could focus on making her condition improve. Turning around and searching for her blood type in amongst the seemingly endless collection of samples, he reached to pull hers from the fridge in which they were stored, when he unexpectedly heard a sound that he feared he might never hear again: "Doctor?" Rose mumbled, her voice dazed and tired and innocent and, beneath all of that, alive. So completely, utterly, totally alive. Everything froze. The air somehow became solid, something that he could feel all around him, something that he couldn't breathe or utilize but something that held him to the spot as he tried desperately to turn around and face her. "Doctor?" she repeated, this time sounding slightly worried. At this, he stumbled to her side, tripping over his own limbs as he attempted to reach her. As a reflex he took her hand, an action that they'd both become so accustomed to, an action that was so familiar, and she looked up in confusion.

"Hi," he whispered shakily, the beginnings of a smile creeping across his face and a similar one creeping across hers.

"Hi," she said immediately in reply, her voice already growing in volume, still not loud but not nearly as feeble as the Doctor had expected it to be.

He tried to reply but could not, too overwhelmed by the knowledge that she was living and thinking and talking and breathing for words to possibly express what was going on in his head and heart. As she attempted to pull herself into a sitting position, her arms collapsed beneath her and he realized that his words were not what she needed, then. She needed help.

Rigging up an IV, he silently inserted a needle into Rose's arm and attempted to replenish some lost fluids, very glad indeed to see some colour returning to her cheeks. After this he walked to her side and administered a mild painkiller, not strong enough to knock her out, just strong enough to numb her for a little while. Her weary eyes followed him across the room as he kneeled beside the bed once more and brushed back the hair that had fallen across her forehead, but still neither of them spoke.

They sat like that for what must have been hours, the abundance of thoughts running through their heads keeping them occupied for that time, and then without warning the Doctor pulled her into a tight hug.

"What's that for?" she breathed, laughing quietly to herself.

"You're alive."

"Yup," she said, popping the 'p' and smiling, still in his arms.

"But you almost weren't." The atmosphere darkened, then, and their smiles drooped into grimaces.

As she spoke, her voice was an almost inaudible murmur. "S'pose so."

"Why did you do that, Rose?"

"It was probable death or certain death. Probable seemed like… the better option."

There was a pause in the conversation, then the Doctor awkwardly glanced away and pulled out of their embrace. "No death at all was the better option."

"That _wasn't_ an option. We didn't get that choice," she whispered, her voice cracking as she reached out to hold his hand again.

For a while they simply sat in an uncomfortable almost-silence, their breaths the only sound in the cold of the room, then the Doctor raised the one issue that he'd been tiptoeing around for so long, too long: "In the cell, before Elizabeth-Marie interrupted, you said-"

"Forget it," Rose snapped, but her voice was much more scared than it was angry.

Regardless of her tremulous hold on her emotions, he continued. "You said 'Reinette'. You said she's why you're not… yourself, lately." She shuffled away from him slightly, removing her hand from his, and curled in on herself, trying to shield herself from the rant that was sure to come.

"You really want to have this conversation?" she sighed, looking completely disenchanted with their situation. He nodded once, twice, three times in reply, but didn't speak, and she accepted this as her cue to continue speaking. "Fine… Well, Doctor, there were two things wrong with what you just said. One: it wasn't Reinette's fault that you were a complete arse. _You_ were the one who left us there. _You_ were the one who chose her. I'm not annoyed at her, I'm annoyed at you for being so bloody obsessed with her. Two: I have been myself lately. I've just been a pissed off version of myself."

Of all the replies she'd expected to receive, the one she got was not one of them: "... I'm sorry."

"I know."

"Am I forgiven?" he asked, suddenly sounding more vulnerable than she thought possible of someone like him. Her reply was not verbal. Trembling, she nodded her head as she held back tears, then pulled him to her once more, her head on his shoulder and eyes squeezed shut.

"Thank you, by the way," she mumbled in his ear, her voice quiet and happy and filled to the brim with pure gratefulness.

"What for?"

"You saved my life," she said simply, and the Doctor looked shocked for a moment at the truth of the statement.

"Don't mention it."

There wasn't a sound in the TARDIS for a long while, but a single voice broke through the quiet and made its way to the Doctor's ears in a sighed "Oh…"

"What? What is it?!" he asked frantically, checking the IV to make sure it was still working and reaching to examine her neck to ensure that the wound had not somehow reopened.

Her response was not what he'd expected. "I got blood all over your coat. You love that coat!"

"... I think it was for a worthy cause."


End file.
